Sunday, November 19, 2017

This was purchased as a mostly complete loose movement. As you can see from the photos, it is a finely made finned pillar English longcase movement. This particular one is a 4 wheel 30 hour, with the original rope drive using an endless loop system. Sometimes called a "pull-up" movement. In general, 4 wheel 30 hour movements are somewhat rare. From what I was able to read about them, they were made with 4 wheels (rather than 3) for one of two reasons: 1: to indicate seconds, or 2: to eliminate "minute shake" which occurs in normal 3 wheel 30 hour movements.

All the wheels have decorative turned rings on both sides (even the motion works wheel), and there is matching ring decorations on the front bridge, and the large collets on the main wheel shafts.

The wheel collets/collars are a shape I have not seen before. They are a sort of squashed-down keyhole shape.

Another interesting feature is that the hammer stop is in the form of a more rigid (and shorter) hammer spring, with a spade base. This arrangement forms a continuous strip of metal along the back plate (with the hammer spring along the bottom).

The movement is in remarkably un-butchered condition for its age (roughly 1710-1750). There are light punch marks (of the flat-faced kind) around a few holes, and 2 or 3 small bushings installed. There is a poor repair to the fan, which should be easy to fix, and a drop of solder on the crutch wire. The back bridge pins have been removed, but the screw holes haven't been enlarged, and the bridge doesn't appear to have been moved.

The anchor is also of an unusually delicate shape, with the interior portion formed in a smooth curve.

As-is, the clock is missing the reverse-minute wheel, the hour canon wheel, and the once-a-day calendar gear, as well as the bell stand.

Tooth counts (for those who may be interested) on the time train are as follows:

Sunday, November 12, 2017

This is a lovely little Brewster & Ingrahams miniature ogee clock that I had purchased as an empty case way back in May 2006. I was attracted to the lovely tablet and overall good condition. I eventually found a movement for it, but it still needs a dial.

Before:

I'm not sure how this happened, but there was a long and thin break along the edge of the top. This break is ACROSS the grain, so you can't easily patch this w/o it looking very strange.

The backboard was removed to make a few interior repairs.

The 3 arrows show new pieces. The clock was missing one dial block, and it had only 2 small cleats holding the ogee frame in place, so I added two more. Everything was glued in place with hide glue and painted/stained to match.

Sadly the label is largely missing, but there's just enough there to make out that it's Brewster & Ingrahams, and the printere's address is also still visible.

Here is the 30hr spring driven movement I was able to find for the clock. It needed restoration, but it's now in working condition again.

Here's the case "after". I did very little with the case, other than a few touch-ups, two teeny tiny corner veneer repairs, and a wax polish.

Sunday, November 5, 2017

Here's a beautiful clock that I purchased recently online. Do I need more clocks? No. But this one cost me less than the price to ship it here, so I couldn't resist.

As sold, the clock was missing the splat, the right-hand return and chimney, some glue blocks, the weights, and the hands (these hands were stolen off another one of my clocks). Additionally, the original dial glass is cracked horizontally, but still held in place with the original putty.

When I bought the clock, I had assumed that the large door knob was a later addition that was covering a keyhole, but that wasn't the case. The knob is in fact, original, and I was able to find a few other Williams, Orton, Preston's & Co. clocks with the same knob.

The label is in nice, but worn and torn condition:

By far the nicest feature of this clock is the dial. Beautiful flowers, raised gilded gesso decoration, and an overall bright and clean condition:

You can see that the door was never fitted with a Terry style lock, however, it uses the same kind of Terry lock disc to lock the door:

The left side chimney and return had previously been reglued and nailed in place (with 3-4 old square nails at various angles). There was also some veneer damage:

I believe the clock originally had a reverse painted glass, but it has been fitted with a mirror since at least September 26th 1885, because there are a number of penciled notes on the pine board behind the mirror. The reason I believe that the mirror isn't original is because there are faint traces of old putty around the edges of the door. The current mirror is old and thin, and I plan to leave it as-is.

The tops pf these clocks generally give you a good idea of what's missing. The missing top elements at the front are clear, but there is also a faint rectangular outline around the pulleys, which suggests that it had rectangular wooden blocks with a trapezoidal side profile. I'll try to make copies of those.

Here, some of the added nails can be seen. There are three clearly visible, with one missing on the large triangular block, and 2 deeply seated in the thin edge of the side return.

The clock largely needs just a few veneer repairs, a new top crest, chimney, and return, and some general servicing/cleaning.